Funding Assistance to Purchase Stationary Char Producing Equipment

Comments (7)

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  Ali

  24 May 2012 at 22:30 | #

  The difference is that tilnilg with a steel-bottomed plow was typically 8 deep, so no-till doesn't mean no-disturb . Since using redworms to further enhance your compost into vermicompost increases the microorganism content by 8 times, I wonder if scratching in a mixture of biochar and vermicompost with the 4 tines of my trusty hand cultivator will be 7040 times better than regular chemical fertilizer?

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  Maria

  24 May 2012 at 06:22 | #

  Consider the claim that biochar ehecnans the soil for thousands of years and do nothing more to the area you worked this year (except wisely plant something besides corn) Start another crop with no biochar, add biochar to the neglected area, or other variations. Then involve the Organic Gardening people at Michigan State, who should become good customers and good students. This work is too important to allow others to merely wait and see what happens . The new technology of the blog allows everybody in the world to benefit from your test plots.

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  Claire

  09 April 2012 at 16:04 | #

  I love reading about your biochar field tests. You give me heart knowing that someone is actually demonstrating the agricultural value of bhiaocr. The next step is quantitative data. I'm sure the data will demonstrate a relationship between plant height and production of biomass. And I'm sure it will be better than linear.
  I'm fascinated by your observation that the plants are smaller than would be considered seasonally normal. I wonder what might be the cause? Especially since it happened in both plots. In the biochar plot, I wouldn't be surprised if the effect of bhiaocr were actually negative at first as the biochar satisfied it's affinity for nutrients in competition with the plants. But it happened in both plots!At any rate, it's my inclination to believe that the effect of bhiaocr will be even better in subsequent years, just due to the accumulation of nutrients on the bhiaocr surface in the natural environment.
  Could it be that both test plots were not fertilized in order to isolate the factors that effect plant growth while crops in general are normally fertilized to maximize plant growth and crop yield? That might explain the mediocre plant size in both plots.
  Here in Vermont we brag about our corn being knee high by the fourth of July . I guess waist high by the end of the month is a little slow, but it didn't impress me that way. Anyway the corn looks great.
  
  Save me some! Claire

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  Kamran

  09 April 2012 at 14:10 | #

  Dan, Thanks for the input. There is a lot written about biochar and its effects on agriculture. Along with it comes the logical assumptions of how the hypotheses work in the field. Our goal is to prove them right or wrong. We consider the field tests performed in 2011 as just a starter. Michigan Biochar will not only expand the number of field tests, but additionally expand on the tests we have already performed.You made a good comment concerning how small the plants ended up growing. We had a lot of variables combining that threw the proverbial wrench into the whole study. Performing the test in a barren field almost assured nominal growth. Personally, I was ready to see the test plot inoculated with bhoicar to underperform, just as you were thinking it should. The opposite happened. My suspicion is that the compost that was added on both plots aggressively inoculated the bhoicar with nutrients, resulting in a charging effect instead of a negating effect on the plants. The question of whether or not this was the case opens up a whole new study just on this subject! Later this winter we will be releasing a book on biochar and gardening that we hope will be a guide for others looking to provide themselves and future generations with a biochar-charged garden.Your input is very valuable to us and to our followers. Thanks again!

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  Lisa

  09 April 2012 at 09:41 | #

  When no tilling how do I work in the comopst and the Bio-Char. I use EM-1(Bokashi) activated comopst but need to bury it for 7 days for the Beneficial microbes to come and do the heavy lifting, anaerobically. How am I to that without tilling and do you only Rake in the bio-char?

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  Rahul

  08 April 2012 at 01:53 | #

  The discussion of no-tilling is alawys left with more questions than when you first start. In our opinion, each person's situation is different. For example, we don't till our vegetable garden. We just put biochar on the ground and cover it with mulch (sawdust). As the mulch breaks down, it combines with the biochar. Over time it self-mixes.On the other hand, I just disced up a track on land (see terra preta garden video) so I could turn the biochar and compost roughly six inches down in the soil. Remember, this is the first time doing this. We just planted garlic and are looking to start our no-tilling philosophy on that plot.
  
  Additionally, there are some crops that require serious disruption of the soil when harvesting, such as potatoes. In this scenario, tilling the least amount on already heavily disrupted ground might not matter as much because the damage is already done.

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  Susan

  07 April 2012 at 23:36 | #

  There is no doubt that Bio-char is beneficial to the soil. However it is my enceriexpe that the most benefit is obtained when added to good organic soil after the bio-char has been inoculated with a tea made from a good compost, aged manure or from worm castings that contain a myriad of microbes. I would also stress that the adding of chemical fertilizer to soil that contains bio-char would be detrimental as that action would kill the microbes that are extracting the nutrients and feeding the plants! The benefits of bio-char are the effects that it has on the microbes in organic soil and the increase in the available nutrients so this results in bigger, stronger and healthier plants.Ken BourneBC Canada

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